California counties can now issue same-sex marriage licenses as the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for gay marriages to resume in California. On Friday, the court lifted an injunction which ordered state officials to stop enforcing Proposition 8.

Immediately after the ruling, Gov. Jerry Brown advised the state’s counties to "begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California as soon as the 9th Circuit confirms the stay is lifted." County clerks responsible for marriages said they were ready for same-sex weddings.

"Opponents of same-sex marriage have argued that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker's 2010 decision overturning Proposition 8 applied onlytothe two same-sex couples who challenged the ballot measure. But the opponents' enthusiasm for going to court to try to narrow the effect of the decisionappeared to wane in the hours after thedecision.

With Brown and Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris pledging to block Proposition 8 across California, the momentum for gay marriage was likely tohinderany further challenges.

California voters passed Proposition 8 in 2008, six months after the California Supreme Court ruled that gays had the right to wed. The state high court later ruled that the initiative was a valid state constitutional amendment but upheld the validity of an estimated 18,000 same-sex marriages that occurred before the election."